Wednesday March 2, 2011 11:32 pm

The iPad 2 Smart Cover: Apple rethinks the case

At today's Apple event, where the world was first introduced to the iPad 2, one thing stood out to me above everything else. Many of the new features and specs had been leaked, or correctly guessed, months ago, but no one knew that Apple would pour its innovative energies into a case for the new device. But they did, and the new Smart Cover might be the best case I've ever seen for a mobile device.

The Smart Cover is a single sheet, made of either polyurethane or leather and either pink, orange, green, blue, several shades of gray, black, cream or red. It snaps magnetically onto the side of the iPad, and closes over top of the screen. It protects the parts of the iPad that need protecting—the screen—and leaves the parts that don't—the rugged, aluminum back and sides—to the elements. It makes the case thin, the iPad lighter, and best of all makes the case and iPad extremely easy to separate. The magnetic system should work like the MagSafe adapters on Mac computers, which are a popular feature.

But the clever design doesn't end there. The Smart Cover can bend and fold into a number of different positions; you can use it at one angle, slightly tilted, for an ideal typing position, and another, nearly vertical, for video viewing and FaceTime. It appears to only support certain positions for the iPad (there's no obvious way to prop it vertically in portrait mode, for instance), though.

The Smart Cover and the iPad 2 were designed together, so there's some unique functionality built in when you use both. If you close the case, the iPad automatically goes to sleep; open it back up and the iPad wakes. The case's underside is also microfiber, so when closed it will actually clean smudges and fingerprints.

The Smart Cover, available on March 11 when the iPad goes on sale, will cost $39 for the polyurethane version and $69 for leather.

This article, written by David Pierce, originally appeared on PCMag.com and is republished on Gear Live with the permission of Ziff Davis, Inc..